


sofðu vel

by nefelokokkygia



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Illustrated, babbus, dadki, sifmom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:38:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nefelokokkygia/pseuds/nefelokokkygia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“<i>Ek skal vera hjáyður</i>,” he whispers. “Until you are asleep I will be here.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	sofðu vel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [murdur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/murdur/gifts), [nayanroo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nayanroo/gifts).



> i don't even know what this is all i know is hot dadki and sifmom that's all i really know anymore; super far into the future, i can't even think about dadki or sifmom in the span of the mcu
> 
> illustration by meeee

“Áfríðr, what do you say?”

“ _Þǫkk, herra_.”

Sif presses a kiss to her daughter's hair, her little form wrapped in soft fabric and fur to stay warm. The warrior leans forward, Áfríðr's tiny hands reaching for the stuffed _hreindýr_ in the shop owner's hands. She hugs it tightly, the brown and white wool warm on her cheeks, and Sif gives a grateful smile to the beaming woman before returning to Loki.

The God of Mischief watches them as they walk, the falling snow shimmering gently in Sif's long, loose hair as she holds Áfríðr close. When they reach him the little girl holds out the _hreindýr_ , as if to show him her prize, and he takes it gently.

Sif watches his fingers glide over the soft wool, and the Branches glitter like ice in his eyes, his pupils cat-like and dark in the firelight that warms the bustling village center. Sif can taste the flickers of his magick on her tongue, and waits with learned patience.

“It is a child's _leikfang_ ,” she reminds him, watching as Áfríðr's fingers follow her father's in quiet concentration. “It will not come alive in the night and eat her.”

 

 

At her words the little girl wraps her hands around the stuffed animal, and Loki relinquishes it, watching her squish it against her cheek. He says nothing, as he always does, and Sif only lets out a breath, her eyes meeting his own, brow raised.

“Not everything in Yggdrasill's hold is out to come for you, or any of us,” the warrior reminds him, as she has done countless times, but she knows it will do no good. Ever since their first child he has been cautious, and she has learned to live and let live. _There are far worse things than protective for him to be_ , she thinks.

“Where are the boys?” the warrior asks, feeling Áfríðr lean against her chest, her little girl warm and sleepy in her mother's wool-warmed arms. Wind nips at Sif's cheeks, the fur around her neck fluttering with snowflakes, and her cloak brushes the ground.

Loki's eyes glitter dark and deep, and three tiny, misty dragons soar from his palms, weaved with tendrils of his magick. They disappear down the cobblestone streets, gliding lightning and unseen through the throngs of laughing, lively villagers. In seconds, he answers.

“Eyarr and Líkreifr are in the taverns, and Ullr found his way into a library,” he says, and Sif does not miss the scent of pride that drips from his teeth. Their firstborn is so like the Trickster, his head buried in books and fingers always glimmering with magick, though she knows he loves his other sons no less for their sturdy arms and sharpened swords.

“Áfríðr is falling asleep,” Sif says, her voice quiet against the backdrop of the village. “Call my sons. It is time to go home.”

Loki's eyes flash green, his dragons at work, and he gestures for their daughter. He gently takes the sleeping child against his chest, her _hreindýr_ tucked against her mouth and one of her hands curled in the fur and fabric of his collar.

They walk.

 

 

“ _Faðir_ , let us put her to bed.”

Sif laughs into the fur of her cloak as she slips the heavy wool from her shoulders, hanging it on a hook by the door.

“I am quite capable of putting your _systir_ to bed, Ullr,” comes the Trickster's reply, but her sons don't give up.

“ _Faði_ , we're not going to wrap her blankets around her until she can't move and roll her down the hallway,” Líkreifr drawls. “That was Eyarr, and it was only once.”

“Was not,” the youngest son retorts.

“You were barely 30, there's no way you remember,” Ullr counters.

“ _Strákar_ , that's enough,” Sif chides, though she can't hide the smile that spreads across her face as she addresses her sons. “Loki, let them put her to bed. They know better than to let any harm come to their _systir_.”

Sif's sly smile and raised brow are familiar sights to the three brothers, her unspoken warning throughout their adolescent years and far more terrifying than their father's lashing tongue could ever be.

“ _Já, móðir_ ,” her sons chorus, and she hugs them all to her. (Be they twenty or two-hundred, they will always be her boys.)

The warrior turns to Loki, his cloak still hanging from his shoulders, Áfríðr's face still buried in the fur around his neck. His fingers flicker though her wavy black hair, so much like his own, and he presses a kiss to the top of her head. Líkreifr takes her gently from his arms, and Sif watches the God of Mischief hesitate; if her sons notice, they make no mention as they bid him a quiet goodnight.

“You _are_ allowed to touch them,” Sif says after they've gone upstairs. “They may no longer be boys but they are still your children.” She undoes the clasp at Loki's neck, pulling the thick wool and fur from his shoulders.

“They do not need me to,” he replies, and his eyes darken in the way she has always seen when they speak of his affections.

“They are your sons,” she says gently, her hands sliding down the leather and cloth draped over his chest. “They will always need you.”

He takes her hands from his chest, rubbing his thumbs against the skin of her palms, calloused and worn with centuries of training and practice. The warrior reaches up to kiss him, her mouth heated and soft against his, and he trades her hands for her hair, curling his fingers through the dark strands.

“ _I_ will always need you.”

 

 

He wakes instantly to the sound of cries muffled in sheets and fur.

(He has learned the sound well enough that he is trained to it like a dog to the hunt, and what he would not give to never hear it from the mouths of his children again.)

Loki slips from the bed, careful not to wake Sif, throwing on a thick robe and padding quietly down the hall to the next room.

“Áfríðr, what is wrong?” he asks, and the sight of the little girl curled up on her bed sniffling is like a dagger in the spaces of his ribs.

“A _martröð, faði_ ,” she whispers, furiously wiping her eyes with her sleeve, and he sits on the edge of her bed, conjuring a cloth to clean her face of tears.

“ _Allt í lagi_ ,” Loki says, the cloth disappearing in a flicker of green light as Áfríðr clings to his chest, her face buried in the soft fabric of his robe. He lifts her into his arms, pressing a kiss to her hair. “ _Ek em hér_.”

“It was dark and I could not see you or _mútta_ or Ullr or Líkreifr or-”

“ _Sushh_ , Fríða, everything is fine,” Loki says, plucking one of the blankets from her bed and draping it around her tiny form. “Your brothers are in their rooms and your mother is still asleep, and I am with you. There is nothing to fear.” Her arms cling to his neck and the wild curls of his long hair, though her crying has stopped and her breath comes slow now. In the silence he holds her, tilting ever-so on his feet to calm her.

“ _Faði_ , do you have _martraðir_?” Her question brings him to a stop, and he does not miss the way his hold on her tightens, not enough for her to notice but enough for him to acknowledge that there are things far deeper than darkness that haunt him.

“ _Já, krílið mitt_ ,” he says, more to himself than her, and he thinks of the monsters that have followed him this far that are more than the teeth that gnaw in his bones. “Everyone, even your mother and brothers.”

“But how?” she asks, her fear turned to curiosity, and her eyes glimmer like Sif's in the heat of battle. “ _Mútta_ is brave like you. You're not scared of anything.”

(He does not tell her of the days long before, where the darkness took him, or when it was all he could do not to rip the realms apart or take the scepter in his hands and feel its power slick like blood in his veins. He does not tell her of the monsters that he has made and that have made him in their image, of the blood on his hands that no prayer to Yggdrasill will ever repay. He does not tell her of the blackness of his dreams, the pale faces of Malekith's elves or the glimmering steps to Thanos' throne.

He does not tell her that his fear could have kept him from knowing her at all.)

“I was just now,” he begins, turning towards the window of her room, pulling back the drapes to let the light of the glittering Branches drip like liquid onto the floor. “When you are upset, when your brothers are hurt, when your mother is gone; there are things that even I am wary of.” She is silent again, leaning against his chest and staring up at the stars scattered across the sky like flecks of paint.

“ _Faði_ , how do you not be afraid?”

“You don't,” Loki replies. “There will always be things that frighten you, and there is nothing wrong with that. There can be no love without it.”

“How?”

“From _móðir_ Yggdrasill all things come, and to her all things return,” Loki says, the words ancient on his tongue, learned upon his own mother's knees, Frigg's words like warmth in his throat. “She gives to the Nine Realms fear and love and all we know. There cannot be one without the other, just as there can be no life without death, no beginning without an end to define it. It is she who gives life and takes it back into her Branches when the circle is complete, and so too do we know love when we have at last conquered fear.”

The God of Mischief looks down when she offers no response, Áfríðr asleep against his chest, her tiny hands curled in the thick fabric of his robe. He returns to the side of her bed, laying her down and replacing the sheets and furs. She stirs at his movements, her hands reaching for him again, and he presses a kiss to her hair, sitting at her side.

“ _Ek skal vera hjáyður_ ,” he whispers. “Until you are asleep I will be here.” He takes her new _hreindýr_ , a glimmer of green flashing in his eyes and around his wrist, and the wool animal floats between his hands. Áfríðr smiles, plucking it from the air and squishing it in her arms, laughing as gentle sparks glitter around it.

“ _Góða nótt, faði_.”

“ _Góða nótt_ , Áfríðr,” Loki says, his daughter curled in the sheets, her eyes closed.

 

_His daughter._

 

When he returns to their rooms, Sif runs her hands through his hair, and her mouth on his is the like waters of Yggdrasill, unending against the shore.

**Author's Note:**

>  _áfríðr_ \- old norse name from the elements meaning 'all' and 'beloved'
> 
>  _Þǫkk_ \- old norse for 'thank you'
> 
>  _herra_ \- old norse for 'sir'
> 
>  _hreindýr_ \- icelandic for 'reindeer'
> 
>  _leikfang_ \- icelandic for 'plaything' or 'toy'
> 
>  _eyarr_ \- old norse name from the elements meaning 'happiness' or 'luck' and 'warrior'
> 
>  _líkreifr_ \- old norse name from the elements meaning 'goodness' or 'compassion' and 'friendly'
> 
>  _ullr_ \- old norse name meaning 'glory'
> 
>  _faðir_ \- old norse for 'father'
> 
>  _systir_ \- old norse for 'sister'
> 
>  _strákar_ \- icelandic for 'boys'
> 
>  _já_ \- old norse for 'yes'
> 
>  _móðir_ \- old norse for 'mother'
> 
>  _martröð_ \- icelandic for 'nightmare'; plural _martraðir_
> 
>  _allt í lagi_ \- icelandic for 'everything is alright'
> 
>  _ek em hér_ \- old norse for 'i am here'
> 
>  _krílið mitt_ \- icelandic for 'my little one/child'
> 
>  _ek skal vera hjáyður_ \- icelandic for 'i will stay here'
> 
>  _góða nótt_ \- icelandic for 'goodnight'
> 
>  _sofðu vel_ \- icelandic for 'sleep soundly'


End file.
